


Mixing Blues

by jadeykitties



Category: SpongeBob SquarePants (Cartoon)
Genre: Failed Relationships, M/M, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeykitties/pseuds/jadeykitties
Summary: Painting wasn't typically his go-to hobby, but every now and then he'd get in the right mood and he'd paint.
Relationships: Eugene Krabs/Sheldon J. Plankton, Past Eugene Krabs/Mother of Pearl (mentioned), Past Eugene Krabs/Poppy Puff (mentioned), Past Eugene Krabs/Slicker Sam (mentioned)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Mixing Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Aimless musing about Krabs painting, based on some of his illustrations of Plankton... and a portrait that shares a startling resemblance to Slicker Sam (another former best friend of his, from the Spongebob comics) seen in Wet Painters. Lost steam near the end and don't know where to take it from there so I'm just gonna post as is.

Mr. Krabs wasn't an artist by any stretch of the imagination, or at least he wouldn't call himself one the way Squidward would call himself one. But he was fifty-seven years old, and he had taken a few art classes over the course of his lifetime. His work was nothing to write home about, and he certainly had no plans of pursuing an art career. But every now and then things would get... hard to manage, in his head, and he'd look into hobbies to take up to distract him and to cope. One of those hobbies had been painting.

He took his first art class in college, just on a whim. But he had a bit of a tendency to zone out in class and rarely accomplished whatever the teacher wanted from him. So suffice to say, the young Eugene Krabs didn’t pass that class. He'd only attended two other art classes, one that Squidward had dragged him to just so he would be sure that he knew _anyone else_ there besides Squilliam… and another hosted by Squidward himself. He didn’t attend any more classes after that.

Maybe he wasn't committed to being an artist, and had no interest in pursuing an art career, but that didn't mean he wouldn't use what he'd learn in his free time. So every now and then, he painted.

It wasn't the only hobby he'd taken on to pacify the ... _inconvenience_ of having a brain that didn't function the way doctors think it should, of course. He also knitted, he sewed, he baked - things he picked up from his mother when she needed help around the house - or he'd take the worm out for walks, he'd take inventory and count money, and make impossible bottles. The process of piecing something together within the confines of a bottle, be it a model ship or another craft, was actually a skill he actually took pride in and would often be tempted to write home about… if he was the type of person to do so, of course. Not that he was one to brag.

And while painting wasn't typically his go-to hobby, every now and then he'd get in the right mood and he'd paint or he'd sketch. It would almost always be of something that hung above him like stars in his mind. He'd like to say it was just things like his bottom line - visions of dollars swimming on the canvas. But that wouldn't be wholly truthful, and Mr. Krabs generally tried not to lie about things when he didn't have to. And that included lying to himself when it wouldn't benefit him any. 

_(That did **not**_ _mean it never happened, of course. He did it a little more often than he liked to admit.)_

No, it was a little more ... complicated, than that. It didn't feel right to describe them as only the things that pained him, or worried him, or things he loved. It was a confusing mix, sometimes. Things that didn’t fit neatly into one category.

Over the years, a lot of green parasites with a bright red eye would end up on his canvases now and again. Although he knew that the tiny, green, apple of his eye would argue that just because his uncle was a parasite didn't mean that he was a parasite too. Mr. Krabs knew that. He'd been to enough birthday parties, he'd been invited to enough family events... He couldn't remember names, why would he when none of them were his Shelly, but he'd met them all the same. How could he not know that not all copepods were parasitic?

_(But sometimes it sure felt like there was a parasite needling him, the way he'd latched onto his heart and consumed so many thoughts of his.)_

Although sometimes it was also landscapes and still lifes that helped to ground him to reality sometimes, a nice view to center his thoughts. Pearl thought those paintings were boring, and admittedly they weren't much to talk about. They didn't mean anything, except when they did. Which was usually when he lost himself in thought and painted something that... most definitely wasn't there in front of him.

When he'd finally come back home to bikini bottom, he’d been going through some old chests full of mementos from his days of piracy, mementos of his days in the navy already put away neatly somewhere safe. So when he came across some things from when he sailed with Slicker Sam he could only think about how much Sam meant to him once. And maybe he didn't miss him the way he missed... others. But he still missed ... some part of him. He didn't know if he missed Sam, exactly, though he wanted to assure himself he didn't... and he knew that in hindsight Sam wasn't good for him, but he definitely missed the good times, and the good feelings that came with them. 

And, oh, what good times they were. Not the kind you'd proudly tell stories of to your young daughter, but the kinds for lonely middle-aged men to dwell on when they worry that they may never have stable companionship again. When they're worried that for the rest of their lives they're going to remain alone, and unlovable, and - instead of spiraling, and dwelling on those worries, Mr. Krabs simply hunted down an unused canvas and a box of paints that he'd been saving.

And he painted. It wasn't classy, it wasn't refined, it was just a sloppy portrait of a man he once ... well, if he tried to say it out loud the word would most certainly catch in his throat, but the word forcibly infiltrates his mind when he thinks about it anyways. And he's thinking about a man he once loved, admittedly. Not any kind of passionate, fervent love that could never be forgotten and constantly sticks to him like the smell of cigarettes - don't tell his mother he hung out with smokers in the navy - but there was genuine affection there, once.

_(And with his dear Shelly, it was like recording a different episode of the same show. Only, he kept rewinding the tape and making the same mistakes. There was love and hate and something in between, and it'd shuffle between the three, and he knows he's been approaching something the wrong way but he can't figure out what. But he's been making the same mistake over and over. Is it just wanting him in his life at all? Or is it something else?)_

He couldn't remember if Sam were purple or if he were green, but he had felt drawn to the green paints either way. So with a few strokes of his paintbrush, he blotted out a green figure that will become a nostalgic, tunnel-vision representation of Slicker Sam. Former fisherman turned pirate, ex-boyfriend, and gold-gobbling backstabber. The last Krabs saw him, Sam had blond hair but his beard had just enough gray hairs that since it had been so long he was certain his hair would be fully grey by now. So Krabs mixed up some grey and painted a beard, highlighted with white. 

The portrait was somber, and its eyes bore into the viewer. And Krabs didn't know if he felt better, or worse. So he hid the painting away for a few odd years, until one day - not too long ago from the present - he'd found it again. He'd gently run his claw over the canvas to feel the texture of the paint, and he looked at that familiar face and felt something stir. But it wasn't the same stir he felt years ago. And maybe he wasn't completely at peace about what happened but at the moment he didn't feel angry thinking back on it anymore... So he hung the painting on his living room wall, where anyone could see. 

And so the years went on, and they went on, and despite everything they still kept going on. The portrait stayed up, no one ever really asked about it and he never felt the need to talk about Sam, and a lot of the time he didn't think about Sam that much anymore. That didn't mean he never did, but he wasn't that broken up about him anymore and he certainly wasn't a priority on his mind. He'd lived, he moved on, he'd found love again and just as surely lost it again too. And every now and then, periodically he'd still paint. Portraits of his late wife, the mother of his Pearl, and landscapes of places they'd been together.

_And_... paintings of a green copepod with a piercing red eye that knew how to see right through him, but didn't necessarily understand what he'd seen despite tearing him apart with a look. A green copepod that appears too frequently in his life not to be considered a constant, but with far too much irregularity. He would play poker with him one day, weeks after the funeral and between the therapy appointments, and whisper reassurances he hadn't heard from him since high school or college - then push him away and plot his demise just as quickly. 

Krabs painted more portraits of a green copepod three times the next month when Plankton had settled back into the status quo of the rivalry they shared before - before his lucky Penny wasn't so lucky anymore. The same green copepod who he had grown up with, who had seen him at his best and at his worst and vice versa, who had innocently kissed scrapes and scratches when they were children, and would playfully flirt with him in high school when they were alone, and kissed him once in sincerity in college. 

_(And despite all the rough patches and arguments that came between those moments, he'd never honestly expected things would end up like this. He can't figure out why he clung to a grudge against him like a blanket, or what had changed between them. College is when things really started to fall apart and he didn't know why.)_

His Shelly would come to spend so much time observing him, watching him, forcing himself into Krabs' life, who always sees what he wants to... and yet somehow can't read between the lines and figure out what it is Krabs actually wanted - what Krabs still wants - from him. Or how he feels. So he'd just move on instead of clinging to the past and memories of college and all the hopes he had once, and he'd find love elsewhere. _Anywhere else._

But then that " _elsewhere_ " doesn't work out. So... he was fifty-seven, and single again.

He wasn't letting it get to him, really. It was... it wasn't mutual, he really wanted to say it was. But he knew she was breaking up with him because he was cheap and greedy and far too hung up on someone else and it was getting on her nerves. And he knew she was right, so he couldn't complain. Even if it hurt. Even if he was hoping that it would work out between them, that he'd finally have someone who'd stay but - but life isn't fair, so he'd just have to buck up. He was a man, so he needed to act like one.

He doesn't paint again for months after that.

**Author's Note:**

> (title is referencing the blues as a synonym for depression, as well as mixing blue paint to make green)


End file.
